


Everywhere

by OfficialStarsandGutters



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 09:52:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11228517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfficialStarsandGutters/pseuds/OfficialStarsandGutters
Summary: Prompt: "You're the only one I notice." Mickey to Ian.*The dreams start when he's fifteen. At first it's vague details. A flash of red hair. A lopsided smile. Eyes that are sometimes blue, sometimes green, but always crinkled in a smile at the side. Freckles sprinkled across the bridge of a nose.





	Everywhere

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. I completely hijacked your prompt with an idea I've had in my head for a while. (You really have to specify with me if you want a canon based response because I am the AU Queen and will jump at the chance to AU).  
> I have Yellowcard's cover of "Everywhere" (original by Michelle Branch) on my Gallavich playlist, and got this idea a while ago while listening to it.

The dreams start when he's fifteen. At first it's vague details. A flash of red hair. A lopsided smile. Eyes that are sometimes blue, sometimes green, but always crinkled in a smile at the side. Freckles sprinkled across the bridge of a nose.

Mickey doesn't dream every night. Sometimes it is weeks between them. He doesn't always remember the details when he wakes up, but the lingering feeling of the dream clings to him; happiness, warmth, safety. He's disappointed on the mornings he wakes from dreamless sleep. He finds himself craving them.

It takes him several months to build the full picture of the boy. He can't be much younger than Mickey; with fluffy ginger bangs, a face full of freckles, and a smile that, though more bright and genuine than Mickey has ever seen, always has a sarcastic twist to the edge of it. Mickey never learns his name, but he learns that image, enough that he can call it to mind even when he's awake.

*

The places they meet change. Mostly they're boring, mundane places; Mickey's bedroom, the grounds of his school, the abandoned buildings he uses as his hideouts. Some times they're more fantastical, more dreamlike; castles or outer space or large pirate ships.

They start off innocent enough. At first the boy is just there, in the background. When he first starts to actively partake in the dreams, he never speaks. He runs with Mickey, or play fights with him. Sometimes they kick a ball about, or climb mountains together. Mickey has one really weird dream where they're herding mutant cows with rows of sharp teeth and too many heads. The only sound he gets from the boy is his laugh; loud and uninhibited. It's a dorky kind of laugh, different than Mickey's, though that may be because Mickey never laughs genuinely. It's always a show, with a cruel twist to it. An intimidation display. He learned early not to show his real joy. Not that he often has any to show.

The first time the boy speaks to him, Mickey's had a bad day. He's a month away from his sixteenth birthday. Terry had taken him, Colin, and Joey on a run with him. Thing is, it had actually went well. The drinks had been to celebrate, but once Terry is drunk, his reasons for drinking don't matter. His temper had flared over something stupid; Iggy and Mickey making snide remarks at the TV. Mickey doesn't even remember. He remembers the backhand, though. The pain bursting through his face, making his head ache. He remembers landing on the floor, dazed and confused, the kicks that had started on his ribs before he'd even realised what was happening.

Mickey crawls into bed, bruised and battered. His body aches. He pulls the blanket over his head, curls in on himself, and presses his face into the pillow. Only then does he allow the tears to come. Each sob that shakes his body sends a fresh wave of pain through it. His eyes are hot and itchy from tears. He falls asleep like that, sore and miserable.

They're in a field. The sky is clear, the sun is high, and the breeze is fresh and cool. It ripples the grass, laden with sprigs of purple. The colours catch in the light. He's sitting under a tree. The sun brings out the colour of his hair, and Mickey can see the collection of different tones in it. He walks closer, following the red beacon like a ship navigating towards a lighthouse. The boy looks up as he gets closer, smiling and patting the ground beside him. Mickey sits.

“Hey,” the boy says, casual as anything. A giddy squirming sensation starts in Mickey's stomach. It's the first time he's heard his voice. “You okay?”

“Sure,” says Mickey.

“Really?” The boy looks at him like he knows he's lying. Mickey shrugs. The boy's fingers are warm as the rays of sunlight spilling on his skin as they settle over Mickey's hand. Mickey feels the warmth seep through him. He shifts closer, and the boy leans in, presses a feather light kiss to the cheek that Terry had slapped. “I wouldn't let anyone hurt you.”

The words are meaningless, but Mickey believes them.

*

It's his sixteenth birthday when the boy kisses him.

“Happy birthday,” he says, smiling, mischievous. They're at a fairground Mickey had gone to with Mandy when they were younger. They had sneaked into the hall of mirrors and Mickey had lost count of how many times he had banged his head, trying to barrel through it rather than taking his time. That's where he is now, and there's several mirror images of the boy's smiling face around him. Mickey reaches out, trails his finger over the cold glass surfaces of the mirrors. “If you find me, I'll give you a gift.”

The sound of his dorky laughter carries on the air. Mickey tries to follow it. Sometimes he comes face to face with his own reflection rather than the boy. He bumps into two different panels of glass, getting more frustrated each time. He hits one of the mirrors with his fist. It cracks, but does not break.

“I hate this,” Mickey says. He kicks at a wall of glass. It shatters and falls away, leaving him in the fun house. The ground shifts beneath his feet, rising and falling like waves. There are plastic covered cylinders hanging from the ceiling like punching bags. He sees a flash of orange hair move between and leaps from the shifting ground, pushing his way through the punching bags until he emerges in the middle of the fair. The air smells like popcorn and freshly cut grass. The boy is waiting for him, grinning broadly. “Why did you run away from me?”

“Not much fun if I just stay still,” he says, stepping closer to Mickey. He looks up at Mickey and his eyes glint in the sun, the blue-green of the ocean. “Ready for your gift?”

“Yeah,” Mickey says, eager. He holds out his hands. The boy takes them in his and moves them back to Mickey's sides, then steps forward, closing the gap between them and pressing his lips against Mickey's. It's soft, but Mickey can still feel the pressure behind it, the way his lips are slightly chapped. It surprises him so much he wakes up.

He lies in the cool light of early morning, far too fuckin' early to be awake, and stares at his ceiling. He immediately regrets waking. He wants to be back, with the noise of the fair around them, the smell of popcorn in his nose, and the press of the boy's lips against his. Mickey rolls over and closes his eyes, but when he eventually falls asleep again, he doesn't dream.

*

The next time he does dream of the boy, there is no intro. They are in Mickey's room, on his bed, and they are kissing. The boy's hand is on his jaw, and Mickey's hands are on his hips, and their lips press together, chaste but firm. Mickey has never been kissed before, has no sensory memory in his brain to compare it to, but it feels amazingly realistic as the boy tilts his head and the damp of his tongue presses to the crease in Mickey's lips. Mickey parts them, slow and unsure. The first brush of tongue against his is cold, foreign, unexpected. The second is not much better, but the third is intoxicating, sending a dizzy rush through him like a bolt.

He finds himself pressing back, squeezing the boy's hips beneath his hands and sliding his tongue into his mouth in response. The boy makes a soft sound, too quiet to have any real vibration, but Mickey feels it right down to his bones anyway. They kiss, slow and languid, for a long time. When the boy finally pulls away, Mickey briefly tries to follow him. His skin is flushed. His lips are damp and kiss bruised. It only makes Mickey want to kiss him again.

He smiles at Mickey, fond and more shy than his usual bright smiles. Then he leans forward and curls his arms around Mickey, hugging him close and burying his face in the side of Mickey's neck. He smells fresh and clean, and a little musky.

Mickey can't remember the last time he was properly hugged. It reminds him of being little, before his mom had died. She always gave the best hugs. She felt the same way; warm and safe and secure. He had made a fuss about being a big boy, too old for her cuddles, but he had secretly loved them. He never fought too hard when she took him in her arms. It's only now, wrapped in the boy, that Mickey realises how starved he's been for that affection.

After a moment, he hugs the boy back. Tangled in each other, they toppled sideways onto the bed, and lie in a mess of limbs until Mickey wakes up.

*

“Why are you here?” Mickey asks.

The boy shrugs. He's smiling, soft and warm, as he plays with the fingers of Mickey's right hand, holding it between two of his own.

“Who are you?”

He shrugs again. Mickey huffs in annoyance. The boy laughs, lifting Mickey's hand and pressing a kiss to the knuckles.

“I'm just here to see you. Do you want me to go?”

“No! Please. Don't. You... You're the only one that makes me feel like I'm not alone.”

“You're not alone,” he says, shifting closer. His breath is warm against Mickey's lips. He can feel their lips brush together when the boy talks. “You're with me.”

Then he kisses him, warm and firm, and Mickey melts into it. His chest swells with the kind of happiness he never feels when he's awake, the kind of happiness he is not sure exists in the waking world.

*

Despite his doubts, Mickey starts seeking that happiness when he's awake. He starts to see the boy everywhere, in parts of other people. He sees a redhead and he follows them until he can get a look at their face. There's a freckled arm next to him on the bus, and Mickey steals a glance under the hood only to find a man in his thirties. Sometimes he catches snippets of laughter (never exactly the same, because there is no laugh like that laugh), and he tries to find the source of them.

He never actually finds the boy. He Googles it, and reads that the faces in his dreams have to come from people he's seen, even if he doesn't remember them. That subconsciously the brain can store details away and reuse these in dreams later. So the boy must exist. Not only that, he's existed near Mickey at some point. Mickey has seen him, even if he didn't notice at the time.

He tries to drown out the wild, untameable fire of hope that starts within him. The boy could be anywhere, anyone, and anyway, it doesn't matter. This is not a dream. This is real life, and Mickey does not get to be who he wants to be. He has a role to play out here. When he is awake, he has to pretend. He does not get to do what he wants, kiss who he wants, love who he wants.

*

The boy laughs with giddy joy and clutches more firmly to Mickey's waist. His laughter is swept away by the wind as Mickey pulls the accelerator further back, sends the motorcycle lurching forward with greater speed. The wind is fresh and cool against his face, but the boy is a strip of warmth along his back, his hot breath pooling against the skin of Mickey's neck.

“Faster,” he says, his hands sliding along Mickey's stomach. “I wanna go faster.”

Mickey pulls the accelerator as far as it will go. The engine roars. The motorcycle tips up on the back wheel, then takes off into the air. The boy laughs again as they ascend, Mickey leaning side to side to steer them around tree tops and taller buildings. Eventually they break through the clouds and it is just stretches of sky the colour of the boy's eyes.

*

Colin and Iggy are wrestling in the living room. Joey and Jamie are loudly arguing in the kitchen. Mandy screams at them to shut the fuck up. Terry shouts at her to mind her own fuckin' business. A glass shatters against the wall. Mickey rubs the bridge of his nose. He's only stepped through the front door, but he's already got a fuckin' headache for the ages.

“Hey Mick.” Iggy grins at him, yellow toothed and upside down, from where Colin has him pinned to the floor. “Help a brother out.”

“I ain't getting mixed up in your stupid fights,” Mickey says, stepping past them. Mandy screams; no words, just sound, and shoves past Mickey on her way to her room. Her door slams so hard it makes the walls shake.

“You tell that bitch sister of yours to learn her fuckin' place,” Terry says, a slur in his voice. It's barely two in the evening, but it's always five o'clock somewhere.

“Sure dad,” Mickey says, but he has no intention of telling Mandy anything. He moves through the chaos and steps into his room, clicking the door shut behind him. It does little to block the sound. He leans against the door and lets his head fall back, hit the wood with a thunk.

“Fuck,” Mickey says to no one, rubbing his palm into his eye. He's tired. His head hurts. Mostly, he's sick of this shit hole. He flops onto the bed and buries his head in his arms, thinking of the boy. He can never summon him as clearly when he's awake, and the feeling is never the same. Not the convincing depth and submergence of the dreams. When he's imagining, it's harder to believe it's real. That he's real.

The boy wraps his arms around him and Mickey buries his face against his shoulder, but in his imagination, there is no clean, musky scent. No warmth emanating through the thin cotton of his t-shirt. It's a weak imitation he tries to comfort himself with. It's not enough.

“Fuck it,” Mickey says, kicking off his jeans. He grabs his headphones and the iPod he stole from some kid who didn't pay up for their drug delivery, and gets into the bed. Mickey pulls the duvet over his head. He turns his music up loud enough to block out the sound from outside his room. _Please be there please show up please let me dream._

It's raining; fat droplets of it landing heavily, bouncing off the tarmac. Mickey squints through the rain. He's in an empty car park, dimly lit by a few street lamps. The ground is laden with puddles. In the distance, Mickey can see a shadow form; a dim outline of a person. He walks towards them.

The boy is soaked through. His clothes cling to his lithe form. His hair is flat on his head like a helmet, the strands of his fringe plastered against his forehead. He doesn't turn towards Mickey when he approaches. He's holding a damp cigarette that has gone out and staring at one of the lights. Water runs along the contours of his face.

“Hey,” Mickey says, stepping to his side.

The boy's head turns slowly. The cigarette drops from his fingers and lands in a puddle at his feet.

“Hey,” he says, his voice flat, more empty than Mickey's ever heard it. Mickey can sense immediately that something is wrong. Something has upset him.

“What's wrong?”

The boy shrugs. He looks back at the light. He sighs; a big inhale that makes his chest puff out and a long, drawn out exhale.

“Just. Life. It's shit.”

“Yeah,” Mickey says, because it is. He reaches out his fingers. The boy curls his around them in response. Despite the cold of the rain, Mickey feels warmth rush through him. “Missed ya.”

“Yeah?” A brief hint of a smile lights the boy's face.

“Yeah.”

The boy turns towards him. He looks at Mickey with that hint of smile for a moment, then they're both surging forward, catching each others' jaws, kissing firm and hard. Mickey clutches at his neck, and his hands tangle through Mickey's hair.

The rain slows, then stops.

*

“It's your birthday.” Mickey doesn't know how he knows, but he does. They're on the cliff face of a mountain. Their feet hang over the edge. Through the gap of his knees, Mickey can see stretches of forest and a curving river. They look very small and far away, like miniature toys, or a photograph. Despite the height, he feels no fear.

“Yeah.” The boy leans back on his hands and tips his face up to the sun. The breezes blows his fringe back. His freckles are bold and dark against his skin.

“What age are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“Ah. I'm sixteen.”

“I know. Only for a few more months, though.”

“You remembered.”

“Course.” The boy looks towards him with a flash of a smile. “How could I forget somethin' so important?”

“It's not important.”

“'Course it is. It's the day you were born, and I think you're pretty important.”

“No one else thinks so.”

“Fuck everyone else.”

“I don't wanna,” Mickey says, slow, cautious. He meets the boy's gaze and he looks back, biting his lip. They've never had sex. They've kissed, and touched over clothes, and rutted against each other. They've tangled their limbs together and cuddled, dotted kisses over each other's bare skin. Mickey's always been too scared to take it further in case it ruins the dream.

“I think I know what I want for my birthday,” the boy says, and smiles, that mischievous glint from the first time he kissed Mickey. Mickey leans across and kisses him. They shuffle back from the edge of the cliff, never breaking the kiss, his arm looped around Mickey's neck. As if in response to them, the scene shifts around them, turns into a cramped bedroom with twin beds side by side, and another bed crammed into an alcove in the wall.

“This is your room.” Mickey looks around with interest. He's never seen the boy's room before.

“For now,” he says, pressing kisses to Mickey's throat.

“You're moving?”

“I'm in care.”

“What?”

“Foster care, but my sister's gonna get us back together soon. She always does.” He takes Mickey's wrist before he can ask any more questions, and guides his hand to the bulge in his jeans. Mickey presses his palm down. The boy pants and rolls his hips up against the touch.

Everything seems to go in a hazy blur after that, not the usual stark quality of realism his dreams of the boy hold, but more of a dreamlike sequence. He strips the boy's clothes away, trails hands and mouth over him, and then he's between his legs, taking him in his mouth until the boy falls apart with a moan above him.

“Fuck,” he hisses.

Mickey wakes with his skin hot and his cock hard.

*

He hasn't seen the boy since. It's been over two months, his seventeenth birthday is rapidly approaching, and he hasn't seen the boy since. Every morning Mickey wakes from either dreamless sleep, one of his fucked up nightmares, or the bog standard eclectic mix of dream scenes. He should be used to it by now, but he still feels hollow and disappointed.

“Who pissed in your cereal?” Mandy asks, sitting across the table from Mickey and taking in his sullen expression. Mickey flips her off. Mandy kicks him under the table.

“Fuck off.”

“Fuck you.”

“Bitch.”

“Dick.”

“Cunt.”

“Asshead.”

Mickey rises so sharply his chair falls with a loud clatter. He leaves it lying as he storms out of the house, lighting up before he's even out the door. He's not really mad at Mandy, he's just angry in general, picking fights to try and work some of it off. He smokes the whole way to the Alibi. He drops into one of the stools by the bar, ordering a beer and downing half of it in one long sip. Then he just cups the pint glass between his hands and stares into it sullenly.

“Did you hear the Gallaghers are movin' back?”

“Hear it? I fuckin' had Frank slinking around like the weasel he is, tryna find a place to stay. Had to chase him out with the brush. Worse than a stray.”

“Think there's even more kids than last time now. Like a little army of them.”

“Fuckin' Catholics.”

“Who're the Gallaghers?” Mickey asks, not because he cares, but because there's a bit more solidarity in day drinking if you actually talk to the other daytime alcoholics.

“You've never heard of the Gallaghers? Used to live on Wallace Street,” Kermit says.

“Guess you must have been pretty little when they left,” Tommy says.

“Why'd they leave?” Mickey says, turning towards them on his stool and taking a sip of his beer.

“Ginger who owned the house died, and there was some scam with the will. Their cousin ended up getting the house and evicted them,” Tommy says. “Mom gone. Drunk for a dad. The oldest girl had to take them all and try to find somewhere, I guess.”

“Fiona, wasn't it?” Kermit's brow furrows in concentration.

“Yeah. Half of them probably ended up in care. But now that Patrick's dead, I think they're scamming back their house.”

The mention of care reminds Mickey of the boy, and his stomach does a sick twist. He's lost any interest in the conversation now. His knuckles are white on the edge of the bar.

“Oh,” is all he says. He finishes his beer and leaves, popping home to get his gun, and heading under the El tracks to blow off some steam.

*

“Haven't seen you in a while.”

They're in the middle of a forest. Walls of trees stretch up on either side of them. It is very still and silent. Between the trees, there is a train track. The boy is walking along one side of it. Mickey is on the other. They hold hands for stability.

“Haven't been sleepin' great,” he says, squeezing Mickey's hand when he wobbles. “Sorry.”

“It's okay,” Mickey says, even though it wasn't, but it is now. It's easy to forget how awful everything was when they're together and everything feels so good now; so right and easy. “You alright?”

“Better now. You?”

“Same old.”

The boy nods. He stops walking and turns sideways, planting his feet and facing Mickey. Mickey mimics him, holding out his other hand to press against the boy's other palm, balancing each other with two hands now.

“I miss you,” the boy says.

“I'm here.”

“I miss you all the time. When I'm awake.”

“Are you real?” Mickey asks, because he often wonders. The boy's face crumples into amused confusion.

“Of course I'm real. Are you?”

“Yeah. This is my dream.”

“This is _my_ dream,” the boy says. They stare at each other in a moment of silence before they both laugh. “I guess it's our dream.”

“Yeah,” Mickey says, then the train comes hurtling down the tracks. Rather than the scream of a whistle, it sounds like an alarm clock. Mickey wakes just before it hits them.

*

Mickey's in a crowd. The people bustle past, paying no mind to him. He's shoved and knocked into, sometimes even pulled along with them. He catches glimpses of faces. Some of them are blurry and faded out; spaces where their faces should be, but without the details filled in. After he sees a few of those, Mickey is unsettled enough that he stops looking at faces. He starts walking.

He doesn't know how long he pushes through the crowd before he sees the familiar flash of red hair, but once he sees it, it becomes the only important thing. He pushes and shoves and tackles his way through people. As he's reaching out towards the redhead's shoulder, he has a brief moment of fear that it's going to be a stranger. That they'll turn round and it won't be his boy at all. He touches their shoulder anyway.

It is the boy, wearing a somewhat frantic expression. It melts into a smile when he sees Mickey, and he hugs him hard, pressing his face into the side of his neck.

“I've been looking for ages. I didn't think I was going to find you.”

“You pretty hard to miss,” Mickey says.

“How could you notice me in the middle of all these people?”

Mickey thinks that's a stupid question. Mickey thinks it doesn't matter how many people there are, how could he not notice this vibrant, beautiful boy? He reaches up and touches his cheek, stroking his thumb along the boy's cheekbone.

“You're the only one I notice.”

*

People start moving things into the house on Wallace Street. Mickey sees them when he's walking by; a girl with dark hair tied back in a ponytail, and a boy with a buzzcut and scabs on his knees. They must be the Gallaghers, he thinks, but otherwise gives them little thought.

*

“Happy birthday!” The boy tackles him down into the clouds. They're on a beach that, rather than sand, is comprised of soft, fluffy clouds. The tide laps at the edge of them. The clouds feel warm and solid, but soft and squishy beneath him, like marshmallows. The boy kisses him sweet at first, then firm, his hands sliding down Mickey's chest. “Can I give you your gift?”

“Not gonna make me find you this time?”

The boy grins and shakes his head. Then his hands are on Mickey's belt, and Mickey thinks of little else. It has the same hazy quality as before when the boy settles between his legs and swallows him down. Mickey feels his orgasm all the way to his toes. He flops back into the clouds when he's done, panting. The boy licks his lips and crawls up to lie alongside him, dotting kisses down along Mickey's cheek.

“I love you,” he says, and Mickey feels hot all over. Fingers slide between his, easy and comfortable, lightly squeezing. His heart swells in his chest. The words don't fill him with the kind of fearful dread he thought they might.

“I love you.” The words fall from Mickey's lips before he's even made the decision to say them, without his authority, blasted from his subconscious without thought. He turns his head to look at the boy and is met with a blinding grin. As he's pinned down and kissed thoroughly, he can't bring himself to regret saying it.

*

Mickey's on his way to the shop to get some BBQ Pringles and dip, in a baggy pair of sweats and an ugly, stained tank. He's fiddling with his cigarettes, trying to fish one out of the pack but it's jammed between the others, when his elbow clips against someone else's.

“Ey. Get the fuck out of my space, man.” Mickey's head jerks up sharply to find a wide pair of blue-green eyes just staring at him. He staggers back a step, and the boy comes into wider view. His lips are parted in shock, his gaze flicking all over Mickey like he's trying to take him in.

“It's you,” he says. His voice sounds very distant to Mickey. He can hear his blood rush in his ears.

“Dunno what the fuck you're talkin' about,” he says, but his voice is weak, doesn't carry the words with the bite he wants. He wishes he were at least wearing a clean shirt.

The boy looks more hesitant now, cautious.

“Oh. I- You reminded me of someone,” he says, shaking his head like he's shaking away the idea. He starts to walk on, glancing back over his shoulder at Mickey.

Mickey watches him go. Mickey chews his lip, then pushes it forward with his tongue and runs his thumb along it twice. He can't. He can't be gay when he's awake. It's too dangerous. Too risky. Too-

Fuck it.

“Wait, wait.” He breaks into a light jog after the boy, who turns sharply at the sound of his voice. “It's me.”

“I knew it!” The boy laughs his fuckin' dorky laugh and Mickey knows as well, because no one can duplicate that. “I'm Ian. I couldn't tell you, in the dreams. I dunno why but I couldn't ever get the words out.”

“Mickey.” Mickey tongues at the corner of his mouth, suddenly ridiculously nervous.

“Mickey,” Ian says, smiling as he tastes the name in his mouth. “Mickey Mickey. Wow. This is- Shit, this is crazy.”

“Yeah.”

“I can't believe- I mean, I never thought-”

“Yeah.” Mickey nods. He doesn't need Ian to finish those thoughts, because he knows what he means, understands completely. “What are you doin' here?”

“Oh, we just moved here. Well, moved back, we were here when I was little. Uh, just around the corner. Wallace Street?”

“Is your last name Gallagher?”

“Yeah! Why?”

“I know the house.” Mickey can't stop smiling. He's certain he's never smiled this much in his life. It's making his cheeks ache. Ian grins back at him, bright and delighted.

“You live nearby?”

“'Bout five minutes.”

“Guess we're practically neighbours then.” Ian laughs, giddy, intoxicating.

“Practically, yeah.”

“So, neighbour...” Ian smiles that mischievous smile of his. “You wanna do somethin' sometime?”

“I wanna do everything,” Mickey says, and means it.


End file.
